Department of History

Welcome to the Department of History

The history department is a long-standing, vital and integral part of Catholic University.

It offers a superb undergraduate and graduate education, combining the intimacy of a liberal arts college with the rigor of a research university. The undergraduate major culminates in small intensive seminars and in original research; where possible connections are made to Washington, DC, as a central location for U.S. and international history and as a city rich in research opportunities. The city of Washington provides endless options for internships – in government, museums, businesses, law firms and not-for-profit organizations – and history department alumni have pursued careers in all of these areas after graduating from the university.

Graduate education is concentrated in the following fields: medieval, early modern, and late modern Europe; United States; and Latin America. At present, the department has particular topical strengths in the areas of the history of political culture, history of religion, intellectual history, the history of migration to the New World both voluntary and involuntary (slavery), and the history of women.  In each field we have faculty members with expertise in the history of Catholics and of Catholicism. The history department’s distinguished faculty members have won grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Academy in Berlin and the Humboldt Foundation. For their record of publications and teaching please consult their individual profiles in the faculty section of this website. Washington, DC is an outstanding city for graduate research, starting with the Library of Congress and including the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Archives and Dumbarton Oaks. A consortium links CUA to the many other DC-area universities. The department has an impressive record of job placement for alumni of its masters and Ph.D. programs.

Questions should be directed either to the department administrator, Ramon Sola (solar@cua.edu), to the undergraduate advisor Michael Kimmage (kimmage@cua.edu), to the graduate advisor Steve West (wests@cua.edu) or to the acting department chair, Laura Mayhall (mayhall@cua.edu).